Steam allows us to launch games from its platform and also others that are not. This is best understood on a device like the Steam Deck, where we can install Steam games officially and also from other platforms. launchers like EPIC and GOG, among others, and have them all in game mode. The downside to adding these types of games and apps is that it puts them in a separate section — Outside Steam — and the images it shows are a gray background with the name of the software. Luckily, there are tools like SGDBoop.
Most Deck owners I know use the plugin SteamGridDB Decky Loader offers for these purposes. This is not my case. In my opinion, installing a program that can cause problems only for tasks that we can do manually with a little more time is not a good idea. For that reason, until now I went to the SteamGridDB page, searched for the program or game, downloaded the images and added them little by little. What SGDBoop does is make this job a little easierNot much, but it is more comfortable.
SGDBoop adds an extra button and prevents us from having to download the images
SGDBoop appears on the same page as SteamGridDB, and it is a program that they develop themselves. It is not so powerful, since the Decky plugin does everything from the game mode and it seems that it was developed by Valve itself, but it adds convenience. How? By adding a button so that, when you click on it, the image is added directly. Its operation is very simple:
- First we install the wizard or companion software from Flatub. In his official website There is also information on how to install it from its binaries and on Windows. By the way, once installed we can forget about it; it will be used from the browser.
- With SGDBoop installed on our operating system, to check that it works, on the web page in the link above we click on the button that says “Show a test popup!”, which should display a pop-up window saying that it is working.
- Next, we activate the buttons by clicking on the switch in step 3 of the official information — it's shown in the image above, below. What we'll get by activating the switch is that the buttons will appear when we hover over the images next to the one that offers us the downloads. We can also do this on a computer that doesn't have SGDBoop installed, but it will fail when launching it, so it wouldn't make any sense.
- Now, whenever we want to add an image, all we have to do is click on the new buttons that appear — as in the header screenshot.
- After pressing the button, we have to choose the game or app in which we want to add the image and that's it.
Simple and without problematic software
About the buttons, it must be taken into account that there are two different types: If we want to add the image to a game or app outside of Steam, the button has a plus symbol. Otherwise, it is a blue button without any symbol. You have to be careful with the choice as it does not add exactly the same thing.
If the image doesn't add instantly, you'll need to restart Steam or go back to game mode, but I've always seen the change without doing either of these. The links are sgdb://, and you have to accept the redirect every time unless you check the box and always allow it.
And that's about it. Of course, the Decky add-on is even more convenient, but I'm not a fan of installing unnecessary software just in case. And although Decky Loader doesn't usually cause problems if you use its stable version on the stable version of SteamOS, I'm not entirely satisfied with it either. They say that doctors don't cure obsessions, right?